


Looking for Oblivion

by gentian_violet



Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: Gen, Hal's afterlife, Hal's past, Horses, I'm Sorry, Not Beta Read, Post-Canon, Purgatory, Ridiculously researched in some places, a middle english joke I'm proud of, medieval battles!, wild artist license in others, you thought lia was bad? oh it's worse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-23 11:50:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentian_violet/pseuds/gentian_violet
Summary: Turns out that after you dodge all the devils tricks, figure out the deck of cards. Well you still die.But Hal was promised Oblivion, this isn't oblivion. This is a crowd of people who've been waiting a Long Time for his arrival.





	1. Hal Yorke, this is your afterlife

It took a lot to kill Hal Yorke. He’d always imagined death by stake, a good traditional death for a vampire. But there’s a certain cinematic appeal in being killed by the devil. In sending the devil back to oblivion, or to hell.  
  
And, Hal realised, joining him there too. The first time he’d heard mass in English he’d been well informed he was already beyond absolution, 500 years of blood and debauchery probably hadn’t improved his standing much.  
His skin felt temperate, even slightly chilly, and he could feel his collar against his neck, his shoes tight against his heel. It felt startlingly like being alive.  
His eyes flew open, the ceiling was white. So he probably wasn’t still alive. White and strangely glossy, as if it was starting to melt. So hell it was then.  
  
Just as he was beginning to come to terms with eternal damnation a face peered down at him, Hal started, slamming his head back into the floor. It hurt, definitely not oblivion. Quickly rough hands on his arms were hauling him upright.  
“There you are now son, stand straight.”  
The voice floated around in the air in front of Hal, try as he might he couldn’t quite pay attention to the face that bobbed nearby.Hal wobbled dangerously, leaning heavily onto someone small to his right.  
So that was two people, creatures, demons?  
“Always a bit travel sick vampires, aren’t’ey Hugh?” This voice was female, with the same odd accent as the first.  
“The Men don’t like’em that get away.”  
Something buzzed in Hal’s head about the voices, some buried memory. Unfortunately there wasa lot to be buried under.  
Slowly the man’s face swam into focus, and the blindingly white floor stopped swaying like the worst hours of the Battle of the Solent. Odd, Hal thought, he hadn’t been able to remember much of that battle for the last hundred years. Forcing himself back to the present Hal attempted to greet the mysterious demon man.  
  
And saw himself staring 500 years into the past.  
“Sir?”  
Old habits die hard, names die easily. Hal could see the taut man at the head of tables, remembered him yelling across courtyards,  
“Manners like a schoolboy!” The female voice with her odd accent laughed at him, like a stick across his shoulder blades Hal placed the accent. It wasn’t foreign, no far flung lands he’d visited. A good homegrown English accent, just one from the 1400’s.  
The time was heavy and thick, it swam in and around him like being submerged in triacle.  
Hal collapsed down on his old Lieutenant.  
He couldn’t tell how long he hung there, in the arms of someone who fought at Bosworth, the man who took him to his household just because his name was Yorke, it was a joke, Hal remembered now. He’d been named after the losing side. Hugh, the woman called him Hugh. He took Hal away, out of London, out of the rats and the filth and the whores. Gave him proper shoes, had him minding the horses. Gave him something to be good at.  
And died, 10th September 1513.  
A second memory dripped down Hal’s back, but it was too cold to hold onto.  
  
His feet slid uselessly on the gleaming floor for a moment as he righted himself. Turning to face the bright-eyed man, dressed in a wine coloured doublet and a shirt so starched Hal felt his arms itch in sympathy. It was like being 14 again, sinking back into proper accents and ridiculous clothing. It wasn’t so bad.  
“So this is hell?” Hal didn’t sound as confident as he might’ve liked, but his voice didn’t crack and he didn’t fall over. Baby steps.  
“Hell! No son, no. Look at the place.”  
It was the woman now, and looking at her Hal knew her. He’d played football to impress her, fallen into a stream. She’d laughed and taken him to her home to dry off. Mary.  
And another ice cold memory.  
She’d invited him in, he remembered. He’d picked up her little brother, swung him round as the lad chattered about joining in the game next year, Mary had shooed him out. Talked Hal out of his clothes, lain them out by the fire and talked him into her bed.  
“Hal boy, look around.” Hugh’s voice was gently chiding.  
Her bed, Hal felt time crushing him down into the floor again, her bed, the thistledown spilling out of one side. She kissed him, he remembered, she had such lovely lips, and her hands, her neck.  
Hal remembered.  
“Henry. Look.”  
He cast his eye’s around the room, he’d been promised oblivion. This was not oblivion, this was an endless corridor, stretching the way only the sea on the horizon can. And there were doors, wooden barely attached doors beside him, prison cells and ships doors and glass doors and he was pretty sure there was a bead curtain in the distance.  
But it was the people that turned his stomach, rows and rows of them. Dressed every which way and staring, just staring at the trio in front of them.  
  
Crowds were bad enough when they weren’t staring ominously at him in the afterlife. Hal turned his back to them, to face Mary.  
“Mary, I’m, I’d have said it earlier had I the chance. Mary I’m sorry.” He was practically begging her, this was hell. This was his hell, crowds and apologies, should’ve guessed. She didn’t meet his eye.  
“Mary, please. You can’t send a man to hell because he was sick! I was…awful, and I’m sorry. Please.” His voice was thick with fear, as he dropped heavily onto his knees eternal damnation can do that to a man.  
“You ain’t in hell.” Her voice was quiet, and she still didn’t meet his gaze, but Hal though he would faint with the sheer joy of it.  
  
“And what of me, son?” Hugh put his hands heavily on Hal’s shoulders, harshly hauling him back up. “what of me eh?”  
Hal stuttered something that could have been words, but they died in the face of the endless crowd.  
“No sickness with me were there son? Just Flodden, just a _coward_.” He spat the last words into Hal’s ear, standing behind him, forcing him to stand before the crowd. Letting Hal do all the remembering.  
  
Flodden, why he’d run to Poland, why the whole bloody thing had happened. In the stinking mud, in the rain, his arms aching. The Scots looked to be winning, so when the pike came at him…he dropped to his knees, dropped his bill.  
And watched the Scot impale his Lieutenant like a rabbit on a spit.  
  
“Get the young ones to the front.” Mary was calling out over the crowd, and Hal watched in horror as they parted to let a parade of men and women through. And in the middle, the men from the bar, the men he killed just because he was pissed at Alex and weak and a coward.  
Hugh leant close to Hal, close enough to breathe the words into his ear.  
“You don’t need a hell son, not with a purgatory like this.”  



	2. Bitter hearts

The first person to reach him was a woman, who promptly kicked him in the bollocks. The pain sparked up Hal’s spine, he retched as Hugh held him upright with the strength of a yeoman. He hadn’t the chance to open his eyes before something collided heavily with his jaw. He hung limply under the barrage, pain without the vampire was different somehow. Even at his most pathetic he’d been better than them, he’d had a way out. Now he couldn’t even die. Trapped in this too clean corridor.At some point they dropped him onto the floor, the hard clunk of his skull against the floor drowned out by the crowd. A wordless languageless amalgam of rage, of painful deaths, hatred and stamping feet. Hal Yorke had long since disappeared from view, a tight circle of bodies marking out where he lay. The crowd that stood waiting didn’t seem to have shrunk at all, now and again one would dart forward to fill a gap in the circle, desperate to get close enough to kick or crush. And solemnly, to the side stood Mary. Most others had moved through, of the early bled. They’d got bored, taken pity, went off to their peaceful little paradises. Mary watched the prone man curl up on the floor, and she was glad she waited. She could wait a little longer, let the young ones get their anger out. She’d had time, plenty of time to get creative. 

With the floor cold against his ear Hal tried for escape, counting the kicks. Trying to count through the stretched wet pain that was soaking through his chest. Then someone ground their heel down heavily on his hand, shattering and scraping the bones, drawing a high keening noise from his throat. He lost count, and somewhere above him there was laughter. There was blood, sticky, congealed between his cheek and the floor. If he’d been able to breathe Hal might have laughed, he could barely smell it, it’d been a long time since he’d felt so human.Then one of his victims kicked him savagely in the back of the head.Hal was dimly aware of his back hitting a wall, he felt like he’d been pulverised, then dropped off the tower of London. His injuries were consistent with both. His mouth hung open, wailing noiselessly, no breath bubbled through the blood and spit. But he was still very much…no more dead. A heavy workboot slammed him back against the wall, edging him down the corridor. His useless hand bouncing painfully off the too smooth wall. The corner of a door dug into his neck, and when his shoulders were slammed backward Hal felt it break the skin.  
A door.  
Visions of people running into houses, scrambling to back walls when he walked in uninvited, all those who screamed when he knocked over crucifixes, flooded through Hal’s mind.But the mind of someone in pain, someone in that special kind of pain that runs like a rope through everything that you are, a pain that binds and tightens you down into nothing but red. The mind of someone in that kind of pain develops the ability to bloody well shut up.So it was Hal’s body that turned into the wall, shaking against the effort of it all. It was his arm that reached up to cling onto the doorjamb with his fingertips and hauled him along the wall to the door. Slamming his mangled hand against the rickety wood he prayed it was a push. And with more hope than he’d had for years Hal swung all of him that still moved into the door.  
It moved, god it moved and he could smell straw. Suddenly Hal found himself lying on straw, and more importantly, not being kicked. He lay on his front for a moment, relishing the peace. Rolling over he noted the lack of pain, and an experimental squeeze of his right hand told him that at least some of his injuries were definitely healed. Lying on the straw in silence, it took Hal some time to get up the courage to open his eyes.

There was a lot of straw, this was definitely a stable, an empty one. Well banked too, he felt a flush of pride as he recognised the place. It was one of his, he remembered. Maybe God was asking his forgiveness for the beating, showing Hal a human pride. And then he heard the voices outside, the hammer of hooves on stone, the girl’s angry yelling. And Hal remembered. He was barely a member of the house, allowed inside for lunch provided he didn’t bring muck in with him, supper out with the horses. Hal was a weedy kid from the city, but he could carry and once he knew how to groom he did it well. And every stables needs someone to pick the hooves of the feisty ones. It wasn’t his fault, he wasn’t in a position to argue. He didn’t do anything.

Lying in the straw, Hal wasn’t afraid. He was already dead, he’d seen it all before. It just made him sad, sad for that Hal of the past. He was just a kid.

Barely weighty enough to hold back the horse, Hal had had to lean his shoulder hard into the beasts to turn it toward the stable. Then stuck standing half in front of it to try and get it to stand. An unbroken colt for the ploughshare, it’d never been in a proper stable, just the oversized lean to the farm horses used. The girl was some kitchen fetch-carry, Hal had known her name back then. She fought all the way in the door, he remembered. But Hugh was so much stronger, he shoved her through, and stood looming in the doorway.Someone had beckoned Hal forward. Told him to put the horse in. And he’d done it.Hal sat with his back to the wall, this wasn’t his fault, he didn’t have to wait for it to happen again. But no matter how hard he tugged on the door, the crowd was better than this, it didn’t budge. He guessed he was back to health as he slammed his shoulder into the door. He knew what had happened to that girl, he was going to be stuck in here it was going to happen to him. Hal was afraid.But the door didn’t budge.“I took nothing! I’ll tell my Da, my Da, Da’ll stop working your land!”There was a pause and the girl cried out. Hal winced, Hugh’d slapped her. It was all over a couple of yards of fabric, scraps. Her Ma was making a quilt. Hal remembered. And then the door opened, letting in scraggly sunlight, not back to the white corridor, the door showed a younger Hugh. And this girl. She landed by Hal’s feet, oblivious to him. And there he was, leading in the horse. Hal smacked the horses rump as it skittered in, he’d forgotten that detail. And then the door closed, Hal saw Hugh put his arm around his younger self. He remembered, they’d taken him down to the alehouse after it all. Congratulated him on acting like a man, he’d enjoyed the praise. Praise for following orders, it was Hugh’s idea.

He knew what happened next, he’d had to clean it up the next day. They’d only wanted to scare her, but the horse was young. Hal remembered trying to calm the horse down, wash down his legs and lead it back out to the field. By the time he got back the girl had vanished, someone took her away to clean up, make her respectable for her parents. All Hal had to do was shovel up the soiled straw, that had been bad enough.Hal shut his eyes as the bolt slid across, sinking down to sit on the floor, only opening them briefly the first time the girl shrieked. He sat curled up for some time, hearing the horse scream, and the heavy noises that thudded in the small room.Eventually the girl was quiet, Hal still couldn’t bring himself to look. Instead he reached out to pat the horse, the poor thing was quivering. He knew it was futile, the horse was long dead, but he did it anyway, rubbing soothing circles along its flank.“Wasn’t fair on you, was it? Shh, you’re done. It’s done. It wasn’t your fault, wasn’t anybody’s fault. It just used to happen, remember Johnny? Cow did him in. It just used to happen, people just died.”Hal still couldn’t bring himself to look at the girl, a patch of straw in the corner was slowly turning that tell-tale rust brown, he looked away, went back to patting the horse.“Stuck in here all night, you were wilder than ever when you came out. Mm? I know.” He was rambling, he knew that. He was also talking to a horse. But he was stuck in a dark stable with a door that wouldn’t open, a horse and a dead girl. Talking to the horse felt like the best option.

Nights are long when you can’t sleep. And eventually Hal had to look across the floor to the girl. There was less blood than he remembered, she just looked crumpled. But it was done, and gore didn’t bother him anymore.No matter how much he scrabbled at the door it wouldn’t budge.“I watched! I did what you wanted, let me out.”  
The corridor was bad, but at least it was simple. He deserved the corridor. This was pointless, and annoying, and somehow like coming off the blood dialled up to eleven. With guilt and discomfort and the same gently thrumming sense of doom that told him he would hang for this somehow.He sat there in the stable for some time, just listening to the horse breathe, waiting for whatever bolt of wisdom was supposed to hit him. Nothing happened, but maybe everyone was right about it being a loving god. For the next time he tugged on the door it opened. Hal had a second of peaceful relief before someone grabbed a hold of his shirt and yanked him forward.

It was hell, literally. Or at least he was pretty sure. Beaten until he could hardly move, and then there would be a lull. Mary would appear by his ear, ask him to pick a door, and he’d be chucked into a horrible memory.There was a lot of blood. A lot of bodies.But sometimes it was quiet, like the shed. Hal sat there for a while, staying away from the door lest it swing open, wondering how long he could stay in the fragrant damp. He’d been helping build some bridge, hiding from high-powered vampires. They used to take their lunch in here, all the criminals. They were all running from something, it might not have been the law but no one builds bridges in rural Serbia because it’s their dream.

There was a lot of ash in that concrete bridge, Hal didn’t play well with others.  
The shed was nice, everyone had been too wrapped up in themselves to notice the weird jittery fella who counted in English and could only speak dated Hungarian. He stared at the pile of blankets and cloth that spilled out from one corner, remembering all the unlucky ones, who couldn’t afford digs, or didn’t have family nearby. They used to bed down in here, Hal getting up every other hour to stand outside and breathe fresher air, that didn’t smell of so many people. Hal had tried to teach Pearl Zsíros after she destroyed him at canasta for the billionth time, the only card game he’d ever been good at, and of course it was only popular in Slavic countries. 

He smiled to himself in that little room, there’d been a lot of fights over cards, a lot of wages won and lost. Eventually he knew he’d have to go back to the corridor, but the chair was comfortable, albeit wobbly, there wasn’t a body anywhere. It was nice. He supposed the bar for “nice” had gotten pretty low over the years.

— —  
Mary wouldn’t let him go into the next room. He’d seen an endless wheel of people, seen them bloodied and then seen them kicking the ever loving shit out of him. But now he couldn’t see anyone, he was stuck lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.He’d go mad, he’d go absolutely spare, she’d told them all to back off, like always. Told them to leave.Then silence.In the emptiness time stretched out like a rubber band, there was so much, too much, to remember. Again, Hal found himself wishing for oblivion. Time was stretching, and sooner or later it was all going to ping back into his face.Eventually, emerging out of the marshy quiet, was a noise. 

The tap of a shoe, before the sound had rung out between the walls it had already faded away. Hal couldn’t place it, just that it was nearby. His eyes were crusted practically shut, so Hal lay in the dark, waiting for another tap.  
It came, in time. Followed by another. It wasn’t footsteps, it was the irritated tapping of someone being kept waiting. 

“Eternity away from God,” Mary said matter-of-factly, breaking the silence.  
“Some godly chap said that, what Hell is. Jus’ burning up in loneliness,” she paced closer to Hal, tapping all the while. Until she sat down companionably on the floor beside him, checking first, of course, that the blood was dried and wouldn’t stain.  
“See Hal son, I was thinking. All them doors? You’ve seen ‘em all. No torture we could do worse than you’ve done or had. So I got to thinking.” She paused for a second, reaching out to stroke his hair.  
“You like being cared about don’t you, no shame in that. Human nature,” the hem of Mary’s skirt brushed up a thin film of powdered red as she moved, “Hard to get the rage out right, an’ the kicking hurts your toes. Shows we care though.”  
Hal didn’t have the words or the motor function to beg for them all to stop caring, to forget he ever existed. Couldn’t open his eyes to plead with her, but he could feel it all. Over the searing crying pain of a body that knows it needs to die, Hal still heard himself begging for it all to just stop. To just let him rest.

Mary surveyed the long corridor, without the crowd it looked…disappointingly humdrum. A slightly too clean hospital corridor. And the sprawled vampire looked, pathetically human.  
“God says we should forgive, bitter hearts let the devil in,” she tapped him lightly on the shoulder, he flinched imperceptibly, before she stood up, calling lightly behind her.  
“I forgive you Henry.”And then Mary untied her anchor, the last to leave. Her corridor was a light sandy beige, and it was waiting for her.

Hal drifted back into the silence, wondering if the elastic had pinged back, or was it still stretching?


End file.
